Trolling for the holidays: How to draw out the intellectually inferior among us

I don’t have a lot of role models at this point in my life, but I’d definitely have to include Neil deGrasse Tyson on my short list. I admire his ability to suffer the trolls without descending to their level. It’s “Here the scientific facts. Deal with it.” What’s truly entertaining is watching how the trolls react. Faced with a reality they can’t refute, they do what trolls normally do- engage in cheap personal insults and then act as if they’re superior “logic” has carried the day. It’s beyond stupid, and it says far more about the trolls than it ever could about Tyson, who just lays out scientific reality, which speaks for itself. Tyson isn’t arguing that he BELIEVES something to be true and that his faith in it makes in unassailable; he’s not arguing at all. When you can just roll out the science, why would you even need to make an argument?

Tyson wasn’t being disrespectful or gratuitously insulting…which is more than can be said for many of those who responded furiously on Twitter. All he did was to state the obvious, something those inflexibly wedded to their own personal dogma seem to have a problem with. The pious furor that resulted from Tyson’s tweets is something that says far more about those who reacted in anger. For whatever reason, their faith was threatened by a scientist stating things that would be patently obvious to anyone willing to engage their brain instead of reacting with fury and righteous indignation.

Science isn’t about endorsing your belief system or mine; it’s about provable, demonstrable, empirical truth…which beats faith and belief any day.

I find it fascinating that so many who demand that their faith and rights be respected can’t see their way clear to extending the same courtesy to those with whom they may disagree. You may not like what Tyson had to say, but what gives you the right to lob cheap personal insults in his direction? Do your rights negate and supersede his? Does your faith ipso facto make you a morally superior being? Do your beliefs trump facts? What is it that allows you to feel justified in grossly insulting someone for the simple reason that you find their views disagreeable…and you can’t refute them?

I suppose if these trolls could bother to construct an argument based on reason and defensible facts, we could take them seriously and respect their beliefs. The fact that they default to insults and slander tells me all I really need to know about their intellectual and moral capacity. After all, when you KNOW something to be true, when you can’t defend it except through the employment of cheap personal insults, you have nothing. You either don’t know it or refuse to acknowledge it.

In the final analysis, perhaps that’s the real reason for the personal insults directed at Tyson. At some level, they have to KNOW they’ve got nothing…not that they’ll ever recognize and acknowledge that, of course.

Those who can deal in facts and reality. Those who can’t go to Twitter and reveal themselves to be fools of the first order.

Game, set, and match to Neil deGrasse Tyson.